


Fall to Winter, Winter to Spring

by MadameFolie



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dreamworld Boinking, M/M, Mage Stuff, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-06-01 08:26:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6510448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameFolie/pseuds/MadameFolie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The yoke of responsibility is worn, and wears. Onni hardens his heart. Yet as fall invariably turns to winter, winter turns to spring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Due and Duty

**Author's Note:**

> So. Um. This was supposed to be a short little drabble about cuddling, but as it was being written, some very excellent fic and headcanon got posted (you know who you are..........Solovei and rybari). And then excitement got the better of me and it got out of hand and now it's a 3-part get-together fic. 
> 
> Oops?

Reynir likes to tuck himself into the side of the bed up against the wall like he could plaster up the gap with his body if he just tried hard enough. As much as it can be called a "side" of the bed. As much as Reynir can share the mattress with him rather than lie half on top of him.

"It's...cozy?" He tries, with a little puff of laughter against Onni's neck.

"It's too small," Onni says. He knew it would be uncomfortable. It's too hot out for this. Reynir's easy warmth at his side is stifling in Keuruu's summer heat and he hates that he resents it. And the mattress is old. It's old, awful, and thin. It barely fits him alone. Every morning he wakes up stiff; now they're both going to wake up immobilized by pain. "This was a mistake."

"I don't mind. We used to do this a lot at home."

"We?"

"Oh. Ha, yeah. Me and my older siblings. I've got four." Onni can't see much, even with his eyes accustomed to the dark. He can feel Reynir move, though. The way his hands rise from Onni's stomach to gesture broadly as he talks. "It was pretty great-- there was always someone to play with or talk to, you know? I never had to be alone if I didn't want to. Probably even if I did!"

"I see."

"And if it was too cold at night, I could always just curl up in someone else's bed! But they're way older than me, right? So I was six when my oldest brother left for work. Then a couple years later, my oldest sister found a job at sea. Before I knew it, it was just me and my parents. I was so used to having them around, and then..." Reynir's hand settles on his waist, arm stretched across him to reach. "They came back every once in a while, but things weren't the same. So. It's okay. I don't mind it."

His lips come to rest just beneath Onni's jaw for a moment. Onni shuts his eyes and thinks, not for the first time, that he probably does not deserve this.

 

"You shouldn't dally out there," Onni tells him. Reynir sits perched upon his floating seat on the surface of the water. Starlight ripples around the trail his fingers leave. Odd choice, given he doesn't have to wait outside. He could easily enter Onni's space if he wanted. "It's dangerous." It might well be that he doesn't understand his position.

"H-hey," the boy stammers. He clambers to his feet, all long limbs and unsteady height. Onni steps aside to let him pass. Rather than air his purpose immediately, he wanders half the length of the jetty before Onni can meet his stride and baluster his progress with his own mass. Reynir stops short mid-step, swaying to catch his balance again.

"What do you want?"

"Oh. Well. Um." Reynir's hands grasp briefly at the air. "It's kind of stupid, but."

But what, he wants to snap. Patience, he reminds himself. Patience-- the boy's a civilian. There's no way he's ever known the meaning of urgency. Regardless, Onni finds himself crossing his arms instinctively.

"I...I had an idea. And...I kind of wanted to get a second opinion. I can't ask Lalli, since he's out working right now, and," finding nothing to grasp in the air, he settles for twisting at the hem of his tunic. "You're the only other mage I know. I thought I could ask you."

"I thought I told you I can't help."

"I know! And it's okay, you don't have to do anything. It's just. If you have any thoughts...I'd still appreciate it, you know?" He smiles like it's his last defense, worry creasing his brow. "Something's better than nothing, right?"

Reynir has a great many ideas. Very few of them are any good. Onni supposes that something really may be better than nothing. One misstep could get them all killed out there. Not putting a stop to it -- it'd be no different from pulling the proverbial trigger himself.

"What if I just put up a barrier around our campsite? And just kept it up all the time? Then we'd never have to worry about something getting in again!"

"You'd die." There's a moment where he's prepared to leave it at that, but Reynir looks so horrified, and his dog whips its head towards him, ears forward and fur rising up on end. "If you kept it up too long. Icelandic mages draw from their own reserves for active spellcasting. Unless you've got good stamina, you'll probably drain yourself out in a few hours. And even then, I've heard nobody likes to try."

The dog snorts and settles its head back onto the ground. Reynir looks at his own knees.

"Oh. That would be bad."

"And then that would compromise your team."

"....so. Back to the drawing board, then, huh?"

"Mm. I suppose."

 

The owl likes him. The owl's a little traitor.

He's not sure why he bothers trying to discourage the visits anymore. The boy arrives with military precision each night at the jetty (the same one where Tuuri used to go looking for frogs, a long time ago), his luonto-dog in tow. He can't turn them out into the darkness, not when they've ignored gods-know-how-much danger to get there already. And they just invite their selves to sit with him as he wards his mind through the night. Onni chews juniper berries to pass his vigil. Reynir gathers grasses and blooming wildweeds and fusses over the dog. Sometimes the owl settles on his shoulder; his body dips to one side, try as he may to support its weight. One evening he catches the bird preening the boy's wild hair. Chastened by his glance, the bird doesn't try it again.

Onni really doesn't know enough about Icelandic magic to help him. It's true. He would, if he could. Reynir's safety is Tuuri's safety and Lalli's safety. Everything he knows is secondhand or hearsay, though, like he's heard that tropical flowers grow in Denmark and Swedes only have four toes. It could be he ends up doing more harm than good: magic is dangerous. It's a tool, and a tool must be used with wisdom and responsibility. At the very least, he's been able to stop the boy from running wild with his abilities. And so, it begs the question:

"Why are you still here?" The boy looks up and turns to him quizzically, as if he's the one with any right to be confused. His fingers stall weaving the grasses into a thick cord.

"What do you mean? I thought..." His eyes dart to the side as he considers his response. "...didn't you say it was dangerous to go back now?"

"Not that. I'm talking about, in general. You keep coming back. I answered your questions already. What do you want now?" He must need something. "You know I can't teach you." How many times must he tell the boy before he gets it through his head?

"Huh? Nothing...I mean...I know you can't. And I don't want anything. I mean, I did, but," and he catches himself with the words still on his tongue, "but not like that! Just-- I just wanted to come hang out, you know? You're the only mage friend I've got." They talk, true. And they're associates of a sort. But Onni isn't so sure he'd go as far as to call that 'friends'.

Reynir's answer remains indelible in the back of his mind for days -- indelible in its forthrightness, and in its honesty. At least, he has no reason to believe otherwise. Reynir doesn't look like someone who's told a lie before in his life. Onni doubts he could if he tried. But things are never really that simple.

 

"You cut your hair!"

Before Onni's even so much as opened his mouth to greet him, he is accosted by the tidal wave of enthusiasm that is this new piece of his life. Reynir peers past his shoulder before making a full circle around him. He inspects the haircut with the whole of his body, leaning down to see the nape and rising up onto his toes to survey even the crown of Onni's head. Evidently, the missing piece of his right ear isn't nearly as riveting. And it's just as well. He doesn't like to think how much more of him this mission will claim.

"...some time ago, actually. It's taken a while for me to catch up with it." His scalp doesn't feel so overly cold anymore, but he still has to look twice to be sure of the man he sees in the mirror. There's a prickling feeling where Reynir's fingers coax the hair into the wrong laying pattern and back.

"It's nice! And it's so fuzzy!" He laughs once, suddenly. Onni demands to know what's so funny.

"Now you and Tuuri look alike!"

"Really."

"Maybe we can get Lalli to do it, too! Then you'd all match!"

"If you want to try and cut his hair, then be my guest." Lalli might claw the face off anyone who'd force him to anything he didn't want to do. The image it forms in his head is funny, though. More the haircut then the mauling of an unsuspecting stylist.

"Now that you mention it, he'd," Reynir pauses. "Oh." His eyes go wide. "That was a joke! You were making a joke!"

"...yes?"

"You never do that!"

"I do too." Reynir cocks his head to the side. Considering this assertion from another angle, maybe.

"No," he says. "I'd remember if you did!"

"Hm. Well." Onni turns pointedly towards the shore. "Perhaps you haven't been paying attention as well as you'd think." He can't see Reynir, but he can imagine his expression: equal parts horror and despondency. It's not so surprising that the luonto creature at his heels takes the form of a dog. Sure enough, as Onni begins his walk back to more solid footing, he can hear the patter and splash of Reynir's steps behind him.

 

Grief is like a disease. It saps away at one until there's nothing left for it to consume and only fear remains. Lalli has always been quiet, but now he's withdrawn entirely. He spends hours sleeping, curled up in corners or tucked into a tight blanket wrap in the dark. It's been a month since Saimaa when the skalds' training master sends for him around noon: Tuuri has been crying intermittently in her classes. Her eyes are trained on the ground through the walk home. She doesn't speak the entire way. She hasn't much these days, not the way she did before. The doctor's said it's not uncommon. She's old enough to understand everything that's happened like an adult would, and she'll react, accordingly, more like an adult. Hence the nightmares, hence the panics. How much this all will mold her, it's hard to tell. The doctor says there are people she can talk to. And medications. It doesn't have to. Not yet.

Onni used to enjoy salt pork at some point, he thinks. Tuuri did, too. Probably. He watches the way it crinkles in the pan. The fat bleeds out and runs into the edges, bubbling. Crackling. Turning dry and black. His stomach turns. He's so sure he liked it once. There's some rye bread rounds left in the cabinet, in case he can't manage. They keep a lot of it now. Some days it's all Lalli will eat.

Saimaa looks the same in his dreams. And crueler still, Saimaa has followed them. For all he knows, it could follow them forever. Unless there is another way. There has to be another way. Until then, he can only put up walls. He secures his perimeters at night as best as he can using what Grandmother taught him. Soon he'll need to teach Lalli how to do his; he hopes Tuuri will never have to learn. He doesn't know. He doesn't know anything. Not with the certainty they need. He's all they have, and he's useless.

 

There is something in Reynir's hair. Quite a lot of things, actually. Like a bushy red duster, it's collected dead fragments of tree blown off in the wind and birch cone and bits of owl down. How does he not notice them?

"Hold still," Onni commands him, taking him by one narrow shoulder. He has to take his gloves off to dig the detritus out properly. Like he used to do when Lalli was still small. Reynir laughs and allows the intrusion.

"You too?" He says. Some of the matter is sunk too deep in his braid to retrieve. "Is it seriously that bad?"

"Mm. There's a couple of leaves stuck in there." And a shattered brown something that's not giving up ground any time soon. Damn. He releases Reynir, brushing his hand off against his own clothes. "Forget it. It'll be gone in the morning." Onni can leave it alone, but knowing it's there is going to stay lodged under his skin all night.

"Yeah. I guess so." Reynir puts a self-conscious hand to the root of his braid, feeling for what's been left behind. "Thanks, anyway."

They both jolt where they stand at the sound of a loud crack behind them. The owl has clipped off a piece of a twig with his beak and is making his way along the rest, seemingly paying them no mind between each successive snap. If nothing else, it's nice to know his boundaries are so quiet that even his spirit is bored to tears.

 

Whatever Tuuri and Lalli believe to be the case, he's seen his fair share of what lurks outside Keuruu's walls. The tainted spirits make no distinction between the waking world and the space beyond. He's some months into eighteen when a wet, gnarled mass of rotting flesh beaches itself on his shores. He feels the itch of the creature's contamination at the periphery of his mind immediately, but doesn't know it for what it is. Like an idiot, he goes to look.

It gets him by the ankles. He tumbles onto his back in the shallows; the soft ground gives him no purchase. The sharp rocks under him are too small, but they're all he can find -- he hammers at the slick, black mass wrapped around his leg. He strikes and strikes, again and again until the water soaking into his clothes is filled with loose clouds of red. He misses a few times and smashes his leg. All he can think of is getting it off-- get it off, get it off--

In hindsight, he's lucky the infection doesn't carry over into dreams the same way. The beast breathes its last only when he's crushed its skull. It takes some doing, armed with a stone no larger than his fist. He doesn't stop to think that he might level its head with a pulse of energy, not when instinct takes over. The owl finds him straddling the beast's body, spattered in its blood and bone-weary. It circles above, watching him push the beast's corpse back out to sea. He pushes it along as far as the dropoff, until the body sinks down into the star-speckled water. So much for leading its soul properly to rest. Only oblivion waits for whatever --or whoever-- it once was. He sings a prayer to the keepers of the forest, that he might intercede. Though he probably can't. The idea's presumptuous at best.

When he wakes, he's sick to his stomach. It'd be a quick run to the toilet, if not for Tuuri wrapped around his waist. Keeping his dinner in place winds up being a tall order. But he can't get up, not the first night Tuuri's slept calmly in months. Under the bed, Lalli's breathing sounds even, too. He drags a hand down his face, trying to ground himself in waking reality. His face is clammy beneath his palm. Gods, he thinks, with the sweat beginning to cool beneath his clothes. Is this what they survived Saimaa for? This sallow likeness of a life?

 

Onni closes his eyes. He spreads his wings and opens them once more. The waters beyond his boundaries are clear tonight. For whatever reason, none of the uneasy dead have strayed to his shoals. In the owl's body, he leans into an air current that carries him higher still, one last vantage point from which to survey things. Still clear. Onni closes his eyes. He rubs at his stiff neck and opens them again.

His patrol must have taken a few hours. Reynir has let himself in, and made himself comfortable beside him on the shore. Comfortable and unguarded enough to have fallen asleep with his head pillowed on the dog's belly. He stirs, and buries his nose into the creature's tawny fur. The dog snorts in its sleep. It must be nice, to be so sure of one's safety from the horrors outside, either in one's confidence or naivete. Overhead, his luonto cries out across the twilit sky.

A thick rope of grasses and wildflowers lays discarded on the ground. Onni lifts it to his lap to examine it. Small wildflowers: soft clover, sprays of white, stalks of red brush, all woven into one cord. Grasses wrapped around its length bind it. And to what end? What's the point? With the remaining grasses, Onni tries to make one of his own to while away the night. If it's really so entertaining. He doesn't get far. The flowers crush too easily between his fingers; he dumps the remains of his attempt into the lake before anyone can see the mess he's made of it. If it weren't all so stupid, he'd cry.

But it's all so, so stupid.


	2. Grief is Like a Disease

  
Onni finds it hard to believe that Reynir has so suddenly become sensitive to the mess in his immaterial hair. He's been visiting for weeks completely unperturbed by it. Now he makes a show of scratching at his scalp and flicking detritus free. From its perch on a low branch, the owl turns its head towards Onni, piercing eyes narrowed. He scowls right back. Don't be disgusting, he will tell the bird later. His luonto eats phantom mice and coughs up their bones. Even here, past the reach of corporeality, it'd be horrifically unsanitary for the bird to resume its assistance.  
  
Though he will admit, it is _very_ annoying to watch Reynir fuss.  
  
  
  
Tuuri's outbursts have slowed some. They are fewer and far between and the skaldsmaster does not call him again. Tuuri still sleeps badly, but she sleeps. It's a start. At some point she will need to go back to her own bed and it's not a conversation he is looking forward to. Lalli picks at his food, but then again, Onni thinks he remembers that Lalli always has. Hasn't he? The doctor doesn't see any behavior that worries him. Onni tries not to be worried, too.  
  
He tries not to worry when he hears how small and distant she sounds over the radio.  
  
"It's amazing," she says, and there is conviction in her crackling voice. "There's just so much we just don't know, it's really staggering to see the scope of it. From outside, that is. Once you're outside you can see."  
  
Trond stretches unsubtly. He cracks his neck when he stands, pushing sideways on his chin. He says something --something about getting a drink, Onni isn't exactly listening-- leaving Onni with command of the radio.  
  
"Tuuri," he cuts in, switching to Finnish. "How are you feeling." There's a moment's silence on the other end.  
  
"...um. Fine? I guess? Kind of hungry, we're still waiting for lunch--"  
  
"--I mean how are you _feeling_. Have you been taking your medication?" Tuuri groans. (In the void beyond the radio speaker, a muffled woman's voice asks "Hva?")  
  
"I told you, I'm _fine_."  
  
"You don't have to pretend--" Because she would, if she thought it would put him at ease, he knows she would.  
  
"--and I'm not. How are _you_ feeling."  
  
"That's nothing you need to be concerned about," Onni tells her. "I'm perfectly alright."  
  
Again it's a second before Tuuri replies:  
  
"Are you crying right now? You sound kind of stuffed up, like when you're crying."  
  
"No, they have a cat." Bosse is in the kitchen as he always is this time of day, sticking his face into the food that will be their own lunch. "It seems I'm actually allergic after all."  
  
  
Taru comes to find him in the living room sometime after eleven. He's doing his best to look invested in his book --on loan from Taru like so much else as of late, an inane thriller novel about mages tracking down a murderer-- and it had seemed to work. Or so he'd thought. But Taru flips off the overhead light, throwing the words he isn't reading into darkness.  
  
"Bedtime," she announces, before he so much as opens his mouth to protest.  
  
"I'm reading," he counters. He crosses his legs and leans back in his seat. It doesn't seem to be the answer Taru wants. She holds her ground.  
  
"Nice try. But you're not sleeping out here."  
  
"I wasn't planning on it."  
  
"Sure." Taru puts a hand over the split pages of the book. "Siv set up a guest room, don't be rude." Onni glowers up at her shadowed silhouette, backlit by the lamps in the hall. If he can't see her face, though, she probably can't see his.  
  
"I'll go when I'm done."  
  
"What, do you think you'll be better able to help her than the people right by her side?" Taru laughs once, a short, humorless exhalation of breath that stings under his skin. "Don't be stupid."  
  
"I--"  
  
"Go to bed. It's not like you'll be any use tired and dull."  
  
He keeps on not-reading Taru's lousy book into the small hours of the morning. The pages are crushed under his face when he wakes; not even awake a full five minutes and already he can feel the telltale prickling of his eyes. Stupid book, he thinks. Stupid book, stupid morning, stupid stupid _everything_.  
  
Instead of babysitting duty, they put him on shoveling duty. The heavy labor helps him sleep and of all the posts he's been assigned to in Sweden, it's the least hazardous by far. He clears the porch and walkway the first day. On the second, he shovels all the way out to the street. By the third, he's wishing it would snow again already and give him something to do while waiting for the next call. Because the waiting -- the waiting is the worst.  
  
  
In his dreams, the next he has them, Reynir is waiting for him in Saimaa. The scent of his childhood is the first thing to greet him, rolling in off the water thick with morning cool and evergreen. It's not until he opens his eyes that he realizes he's not alone.  
  
"You're back!" Reynir cries. He slips his legs out from under his sleeping dog so he can bound to Onni's side. "You were gone for so long, I was getting scared there!"  
  
"I've been tired," Onni admits. "Nothing to be concerned about."  
  
"You can be too tired to dream?" Reynir scans his face for the signs of his fatigue: his brow, his eyes, the tension in his jaw (tenser still for being watched). Onni turns aside. Where, he wonders, is the owl?  
  
"Somewhat."  
  
"Wow. They must be working you really hard over there. Do you have to do mage things all the time?"  
  
Onni has to consider a moment before he answers. Mages perform magic like living things breathe, he has been taught. The gods dwell in the earth beneath one's feet, in the stones and trees and the blood in one's veins.  
  
"In a way," Onni explains, "there's never a time when a mage isn't."  
  
"Even my kind?" The hope in his voice is nearly palpable. Onni doesn't meet his eyes.  
  
"I don't know." He doesn't know anything, and he cannot _help_ him. How does Reynir not understand, after all this time? "I'm sorry," he adds, for all the good it's worth. Yet Reynir refuses to yield.  
  
"Can't you learn? There has to be something, even if there's just, I don't know, a book, or something. Please," Reynir begs. "Anything." His hand wraps around Onni's arm. Without a so much as a thought, Onni lurches back and out of his grip.  
  
"Stop that," he chides the boy. And that's what he is, he's just a scared, ignorant boy who's out of his depths. "You're embarrassing yourself."  
  
Horror flashes across the boy's features, horror for an instant, and then something much harder to recognize. He can feel it, whatever it is, in the breath that escapes Reynir's lips and the strain in his throat. The dog, very suddenly awake, is quick to his knee. Its attention is rapt on Onni's every move. It growls in warning. Reynir bends to soothe it with his hands along its flank.  
  
"I'm sorry," he says. "I just...I want to be able to help. I don't want things to be like last time, with the ghosts." The ghosts? The-- right. The hungry shadow, the thing he had driven out of their quarters. He still remembers its eyes like embers and the smoke streaming from its jaws. It had been simple enough to spell it away. But he will not be there to guard against every wayward spirit. If he were, he's not entirely sure he could. They are up against nightmares nobody could have even imagined out there. Onni's belly is seized by the sour burn of guilt.  
  
"...no," Onni admits. He lowers himself to the ground nearby. "You have a point."  
  
"I do?"  
  
"Yes. You can't afford to be ignorant out there." Just thinking about it makes Onni feel as tired as he does in the waking day. "You're right." He sighs and steels himself for the offer he knows he has no choice but to make:  
  
"So....I'll teach you what I can. Just. Please. Protect my sister."  
  
  
  
"Is there a library here?"  
  
Törbjörn turns to him slowly. He has to pause to finish chewing his breakfast and swallow before answering. The extra time does not appear to have mitigated his confusion.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"A...a library." Onni feels his face warming. He did not realize how out-of-use his Icelandic had become. "I was wondering if there is a library here."  
  
"Why, yes! Only the greatest library in the known world!" Törbjörn brightens considerably, not a feat Onni would have thought possible. "The Mora Public Library is an incredible resource." At his shoulder, Siv's expression is one of tired resignation as she sips at her coffee. Onni takes this to mean that Törbjörn's enthusiasm for the wealth of the library's holdings may be somewhat generous. One of their children, the little girl with the pigtails, interrupts to announce to Trond:  
  
"Your face is kind of spotty." Trond heaves out a grunt, a great labor that shudders his whole frame.  
  
"Well, where I come from, we leave mouthy children out on fences for the trolls."  
  
"If it's the Mora library," Taru thinks, "There should be plenty of material in Icelandic at least. There probably won't be much in Finnish, but you've been doing fine so far, right? Did you finish the book I gave you already? Or is this for research?"  
  
"It's..." And Onni weighs his admission, but relents: "For research. I wanted to look into something about spirits." Which is true enough.  
  
"That's wonderful!" Törbjörn slaps him proudly on the back. "That's the kind of enthusiasm this project needs! See, honey," he says to Siv, who hasn't the apparent energy to dissuade him. "I told you, everything's going to work out fine!"  
  
The most striking find in the public library is actually a children's book. He feels like a fool with it in the reading room, with its large, flat mass and brightly-colored illustrations. But it's a didactic for children on magic and the language is concise and clear in a way that an academic text will not be. Just as Grandmother used to, he will take the path that is slow and steady. No need to try to do everything at once.  
  
A woman in a straight apron sits upon a rock, distaff in hand. The pale outline of a raven circles above, perhaps her luonto. Fylgja, the book tells him. Foreigners call their luonto a fylgja. On the next page, she sings a chant to ward off...something. A runo. A galdr. He leaves the library with a stack of books tucked under his arm. Between a songbook of incantations and a guide to meditation is the children's book, safe from the wind and the falling snow.  
  
  
The idea comes to him when he is tracing runes into the earth for Reynir to see them himself.  
  
".......you should probably have a staff."  
  
"What?" Reynir sits with his legs crossed at the ankles, knees splayed out wide. He bounces one knee idly as he watches and listens.  
  
"I've...heard that Icelandic mages traditionally use staffs. I think. I don't know, I'd have to check. But it can't hurt." Onni thinks of the little watercolor woman in the children's book, with her raven and spindle. He recalls, as best as he can, the talismans slung on coins around her waist and notes the glimmer of the silver trimming Reynir's clothes. "Lalli and I can carry knives, maybe there's something you can do, too. I don't think your gods provide the same kind of defense, but it'd be something."  
  
"I....yeah, okay." Reynir leans forward to listen, his knee stilling. "I think I can do that. Should I make it here, or...?" Or out there? Onni wonders. There's so much he does not have the answer to.  
  
"We'll try it here first. You'll be able to call on it when you need it, and if it turns out it...works...then you can try making one to keep out there."  
  
"Oh!" Reynir cries out. "I used to have a staff! Back home, my herding staff!" His jaw drops. "I should have brought it. I'm so stupid."  
  
At first, Onni isn't sure what to say to this outburst.  
  
"...how would you have known?" Until his accidental reroute, Reynir'd had no idea he had any sort of magical skill. Reynir's long since confessed as much. Reynir drags his palms down his face.  
  
"I don't know! I'm sorry. I'm so, so stupid."  
  
"It's really alright," Onni promises. "But also. Sometime, I'd like to take a look at your," Onni falls silent to try and recall the right word. "Amulets. I was wondering about your amulets. I'd like to see what they can do." At Reynir's uncomprehending stare, he clarifies. "Those silver things you have. They look like they might be useful."  
  
"That'd be neat," Reynir says. He gathers up the end of his braid to examine it. "It'd be great if they did something." For once, Onni finds they are in agreement.  
  
"Yes, it would."  
  
  
The owl does return to its perch on Reynir's shoulder when it can. It's not a steady or comfortable perch when Reynir is chipping away at a thick branch with Onni's knife. His hands are accustomed to different work, and he has to be shown the right method. Onni teaches him how to hold the blade, the proper way to strip away at the wood so that the knife doesn't slip askew and to avoid splinters. He does not take to it quickly. It's fortunate that his gloves are sturdy. The owl clambers along the length of Reynir's shoulder and down his back to inspect Reynir's grooming. It hoots its displeasure at the state of Reynir's person for Onni to hear until Reynir is bent over to support it and cannot keep at his task from laughing. Onni retrieves the owl and encourages it from his own forearm to his knee. The dog comes over to sniff at his leg as well. He dozes off to the sound of Reynir humming as he works away at his new staff, warm under the weight of their spirits. Onni cannot remember the last time he has slept so peacefully.  
  
When he thinks about it, he's not sure he remembers the last time he slept in the Saimaa of his memories at all.  
  
He relents to the owl's demands. The staff is coming along adequately, and Reynir has not made any foolish suggestions. When he must rest his arms from the task of carving, he commits to studying his runes. Onni hasn't taught many mages, certainly not enough to make any claims as to his own talent for imparting knowledge, but he can recognize hard work. He understands the value of effort put forth. He has no reason to begrudge him anything. So he concedes at last, to Reynir's scratching, to the owl's dirty looks, to his own itch to put something off to rights--  
  
"Come here," he says, the next Reynir begins to fuss at his scalp. And so, Reynir undoes the cord in his hair. The talismans strung along it clink softly together as he unwinds it and sets it to the side.  
  
"Let me," Onni offers, taking the length of his braid in hand. His hair is coarse and thick and heavy on his palm. He teases the end of the braid open with his thumb, carefully, so as not to tangle it more. Reynir's eyes are wide, fixed on Onni's fingers, his lips parted the slightest bit. Three turns to open the plaiting, and he rakes his fingers through its wake to separate the hairs. And then again. If he meets a snag, he stops again to comb it free. Over, and over until his fingertips brush Reynir's scalp. On the nape of Reynir's neck, a patch of skin prickles like gooseflesh.  
  
"Um. Do," Reynir breathes. "Do you have a comb? Or anything?" It's just a pocket comb, a bit of smooth wood that could fit into his palm, and it's hardly enough.  
  
"I'll be careful," Onni promises. "It won't hurt." He works it through the ends of Reynir's hair, where there's no resistance. "Just like that."  
  
"I know."  
  
It takes ages. Reynir begins to vanish in his hands long before they can possibly finish. He turns to look at Onni over one shoulder, smiling shyly as he stutters out his thanks. The green of his eyes melts into the soft grey of the surrounding stone. Then he is gone, and Onni is alone, comb in one hand and the fading memory of warmth in the other.  
  
  
The way to Odense is beautiful, Tuuri tells him. The ancient highway takes them through a city once called Roskilde, with what Tuuri calls the loveliest buildings she has ever seen. He's never heard her sound so animated. She tells him about the earthy, red bricks and the roofs like steps, homes bigger than anything they have back in Finland (or at least, she thinks they're homes), elaborate temples to long-dead religions. She speaks so fast, she trips over her own tongue. She is -- she's happy. Onni thinks he may be glad for her.  
  
"How do you like Mora?" She asks. He can imagine her leaning on the radio console panel, kicking her feet in a chair too tall for her.  
  
"Mora is fine," he says.  
  
"Fine? Just fine? It's the biggest city in Scandinavia and it's _just_ fine?" There are times where he wonders if her expectations of things are not a bit grandiose.  
  
"It is big."  
  
"Did you go anywhere neat?"  
  
"I hear they have the biggest library in the known world."  
  
"Wow! Is it?"  
  
"I don't know. It is big." He cannot keep the smile from his voice. Another voice, snapping with static, sounds over the radio then, as Tuuri is beginning to reply. A deeper voice, perhaps an older woman. And a man.  
  
"They want to check in with our managers," Tuuri explains. "Part of the highway we were supposed to take is collapsed. Can you go get Törbjörn and Taru?"  
  
"Very well. Be careful," Onni pleads.  
  
"I will! Go pet the horsies for me, okay?"  
  
He is left alone with Trond in the kitchen while they speak, and Onni finds he cannot bring himself to be at unease. She's happy. Tuuri is happy. She is out in the unknown and surrounded by danger every moment she is there, but she is really, truly, happy. And. His throat is welling up. Trond, reading the day's paper, shoots a sidelong glance towards him when he hears Onni sniffle. He cannot care enough to venture an excuse. It's alright. Relief stings at his eyes and threatens to spill over, more powerful than he has ever known, a flood pressing on him from within, but it's only relief. It's a lightness he has not felt in years, a decompressing of everything he has been. And it's alright.


	3. Periglaciation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh. Okay, so I know I said this was going to be three parts...

The staff that Reynir carves for himself is actually rather ugly once it's finished. For all the time and effort he's sunk into it, it turns out misshapen and poorly balanced. Onni weighs it on his palms to study the heft of it; it rolls this way and that and he cannot grasp it with any certainty. Reynir watches, alert. Ready for anything Onni has to offer him. He always is, isn't he?

 

"It'll do," Onni says at last, planting the thin end into the earth. "All you really need is a focus. That way, you won't have to expend as much energy directing your spells, they'll have a pathway already prepared for them to follow. And it will get easier the more you use it." If it's anything like a noita's tools.

 

"Kind of like breaking in new shoes?" Perhaps. Though not the metaphor he'd draw from most immediately. Reynir steps forth to take over holding up the staff. Onni backs away. He nods for Reynir to proceed.

 

"Go on, give it a try. Put up a barrier."

 

Reynir adjusts his stance, grips the staff with both hands, and takes a deep breath.

 

"Okay. A barrier."

 

"Just like with the ghosts." He's seen Reynir do it, so Onni knows he can.

 

"Just like with the ghosts," Reynir repeats. He closes his eyes. Perhaps he's calling on the memory of the attack. The dust at his feet stirs, tumbles a few centimeters, and settles. And then nothing. Reynir looks to him for his evaluation.

 

Onni shakes his head.

 

"Do it again. And concentrate."

 

"It didn't do anything?"

 

"Not enough."

 

"Tough shoes," Reynir remarks. Well, if he has enough energy to joke, he has enough energy for another attempt. Onni motions to the staff.

 

"Again." Onni still doesn't understand enough about the behavior of the magic of the Icelandic gods. There are theories, certainly. Many complicated theories. Even with a dictionary and hours of study he cannot make much of it. The print in the research journals is old and the language abstruse. He doesn't have half the time he needs to make it work. It's as if the gods see fit to test him at every turn.

 

Combat joins the nightly training regimen. All army mages must learn some practical skills, and so this novitiate will as well. The first time Reynir witnesses him forcing his strength to his palms, he is agape with wonder. Onni flicks at a stray lock of his hair, which crinkles and floats from the static charge. The power snaps and dissolves with Reynir's attempt to pinch it between two fingers. It dissipates into his skin and he shouts.

 

"You shocked me!" He looks wide-eyed at Onni, as if he had truly not expected that. Onni taps at another flyaway hair just to hear him yelp again. It could be a boon for his training.

 

"Next time, block it."

 

Reynir's reflexes are poor. But it certainly is fun to watch.

 

 

Onni shovels the snow, he visits the library, and he trains his foundling. Over and over. These are the matter of Onni's days. Some days he is able to speak to Tuuri. Some days he feels the presence of the thing that follows, and dread clings to his back until it passes. Taru tells him Mora is one of the safest cities in the known world. There hasn't been an outbreak in decades, she assures him. Children play in the slush outside. There is a shop where they sell cakes. Onni did not know cakes came in so many shapes and colors. He has seen some with sugar flowers around the edges. (Tuuri would probably like these, he thinks.) Safety is not a luxury here, but a fact of life. He gets the principle. The train had to pass through miles of terrain behind the electrified fences.

 

Even so.

 

The book about the mage-detectives is atrocious. The prose is even more embarrassing than the author's comprehension of Finnish magic. He finishes pretending to read it in weeks; he finishes actually reading it some time after. Reynir's company in his dreams has become a regularity by then. Onni almost does not remember what it was like to keep vigil alone with his thoughts at night.

 

At first he does not even recognize the difference. Reynir's barrier falters and flickers with each strike of Onni's fists. Onni has always believed that a good defense is the best offense. But as the ghostly rune glowing beneath Reynir's feet shrinks, he finds himself reconsidering the efficacy of this approach. Hearsay has told him that Reynir and his kind should be otherwise helpless. The foreigners are said to be soothsayers first and foremost. Hearsay has also told Onni that spirits largely ignore the living. Onni has not been putting much stock in common knowledge lately.

 

"Don't just block it. _Fight_ it," he commands. He braces his hands upon the barrier and pushes. Reynir's fraying strength cracks between his fingers. Reynir braces his staff against the webs of fracture spreading from beneath Onni's palms.

 

"Please hold, please hold, please hold--"

 

Of course it doesn't. Onni has had years of practice to build his stamina. The force of Onni's will shatters the barrier and sends them both reeling; Reynir staggers back on his feet and Onni is able to use the advantage to pin him to the ground with an arm across his chest. Reynir lies still and tense beneath him. His breath is warm on Onni's throat.

 

"Woah," he gasps. "That was amazing. You broke it like it was glass!"

 

"If you'd apply yourself, you might learn to do it, too."

 

"I guess. But it's not as easy as you make it look..."

 

"Decades of discipline. I--" Reynir's hand wavers beside his ear; before the knowledge of this has had a chance to soak in, Onni can feel the blade of his palm at his jaw. "Reynir." His tone is not as warning as he would like it to be. And Reynir's mouth is so soft. This is the thought that occurs to him as Reynir draws him close. Not that he should pull away. Not that he should stand. Reynir's lips part for him and he grants it. It has been so long since the last time and Onni did not realize he had grown ravenous without. The scent of warm flesh, Reynir's pulse thrumming in his ears, the pleas against his skin--

 

\--he wakes, aroused to aching, from the first normal dream he has had in months.

 

 

The expedition continues West. There are places where the highway has given out. Off-road drives and back ways take their campaign astray for days at a time. But the highway, when they can keep to it, is the fastest route. That's what Tuuri tells him when she is able."I only hope we come back with something to show for all this." In the entryway, Törbjörn calls out that he is going for the children. Siv cautions him not to let them drag him into wayside trips. Too many times, he's returned from the school late, stalling the mission for hours.

 

"Just be safe," he reminds her. That's what matters the most.

 

"I know." There is a tense undercurrent to her voice before she lapses into silence amidst the radio snow. "So...."

 

"So?"

 

"I heard you've taken up another side job there."

 

"Excuse me?" It's not as if there's much of what he does that could not be considered in the way of a side task. He isn't allowed input in the strategy meetings. If the Swedes are feeling confident, he's authorized for the occasional grocery run. Other than that...Onni suspects his shoveling isn't likely to be of any interest to her.

 

"Reynir said you're teaching him." It's the last thing he expects her to say. Calling his paltry aid "teaching" is a bit of a reach. Truth be told, he's so caught off guard he isn't able to reply at first.

 

"...I suppose," is the best he can manage.

 

"Woah! So it's true?! But you hate teaching! I thought they pulled you from the roster back home because you made too many kids cry!"

 

"Maybe they weren't very good students. I've taught Lalli just fine." Lalli's never complained.

 

"I don't understand. I thought he was a different kind of mage from you. Actually, until that time with the spirits, I didn't think he was one at all."

 

"He's mentioned that it's.....something of a revelation."

 

"Got your work cut out for you, don't you."

 

Onni's willing to concede: "Perhaps."

 

He is less at ease in his dreams these days than he has ever been. He cannot stifle the image that has lain down roots in his mind, that nightmare. He isn't-- he wouldn't-- he knows he would never take advantage of him like that. Reynir is naïve, but he's kind and he's a willing study -- and Onni has repaid his efforts with ill faith. That the idea has sparked even once means that Onni has failed him already. In the dying summer light of Saimaa, Reynir stands on the stones in the water with a blade of grass folded in his hands. The keen of the whistle pierces every corner of his dream, and Onni reflects that there may be magic in the call. Reynir is glowing with pride when he returns to the shore with the owl on his arm.

 

"I told you it would work," he says. If Onni looks at him, really, truly looks at him, he'd be loathe to admit that Reynir isn't without some charms. Onni does not like to think that the hunger inside him has seized upon that willingness. That he has twisted Reynir's attentions and his own investment in what they have into something foul. It has been so long-- but Reynir trusts him-- and yet--

 

And yet the idea has sunken its grasp into him never the less.

 

It is as if something has shifted with this realization. Little things, things he would have paid no mind before, seem suddenly out of place. During their night visits, Reynir sits closer to him than he did before. The times they are sitting rather than sparring. It happened so slowly --so subtly-- that Onni didn't notice it until he was sitting only a couple of handspans away. Sometimes he'll catch Reynir sneaking glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Onni tries to throw him, meeting his eyes so that he knows Onni knows. And each time Reynir smiles, a little bashful but never discouraged.

 

Reynir knows exactly what he's doing. Onni's certain of it, the way Reynir looks at him when Onni threads his fingers through his hair. He combs through the loose pieces and re-lays them around his ears. Reynir tilts his head as if to lean his cheek into Onni's palm. It seems almost accidental at first. Onni _gives_ him the leeway for it to be an accident -- moving his hands continuously so the conditions for it to happen are no longer in place. Reynir pauses, visibly acknowledging their absence. He breathes out slowly through his nose and resolves the set of his shoulders into something more steady. He's biding his time.

 

Onni doesn't understand. How foolish can the boy be, to be so resolute in thinking he is having these feelings? There are times when it seems Reynir lives in his own parallel reality, where the night expanse between the mages' outposts of order isn't deadly, where their hours together-- where-- where they mean something else. That they don't. He's confused it for the way things really work.

 

Reynir spins a little violet flower between his fingers. There's a small colony of them peeking up through the moss, and Reynir is enchanted by this discovery. A smile curls his lips at the edge, at the softness of the petals against his cheek. (Onni focuses instead on the ground, to look as though he's thinking. The thoughts are becoming too intrusive to continue as before.)

 

"They're so small. I've never seen anything like these back home," he says, once he can bear to avert his eyes from it long enough to spear it through the tail of his hair. "I should probably leave the rest to grow, huh?"

 

"That would be best." Though they will probably just materialize fully-formed the next night. They are, after all, still only a manifestation of his spirit and mind. He doesn't remember for sure if they ever really existed to begin with.

 

"Just one more then? One for me, and one for you." Onni raises his head to find Reynir standing over him, flower proffered. His heartbeat catches and he cannot find his tongue. The summer insects shrill in the distant treetops. He turns away.

 

"Have both of them." It wasn't intended to sound so harsh. Yet the air changes between them, rife with something uneasy as Reynir gathers in on himself.

 

"Oh," he says. Then, as fresh inspiration washes over him, he steps forward. "If you want, I can do it for you, it's easy, watch," and he reaches to cup Onni's jaw. It's then that the fear sets in.

 

"We can't do this." Onni pushes his hand aside, his own voice distant to his senses. "Please."

 

"But--"

 

"But nothing. This is," he says, but where to even begin? There are so many reasons why they shouldn't and the fear cries all of them at once from his heart. "This isn't right for you."

 

"For me?"

 

"Yes. For you."

 

"I don't understand, I thought-- I mean, it looked like--"

 

"Stop."

 

"I know I've seen you looking at me--"

 

"Please stop--"

 

"--the same way I--"

 

" _Stop_ it." Onni gets to his feet. Reynir does not get it. There has to be some way to make him understand. Onni turns to the forest. "Take a break from this for a few days. It's fine if you stay here for tonight, but you need time to cool your head." This will blow over, and things will go back to normal. It will be alright.

 

"I--" Reynir's voice falters. "A break--"

 

"Yes. It's okay," he says, for Reynir's benefit. "You're young, you don't know what you're doing."

 

"No." The hard edge to Reynir's voice stuns him to silence. Onni knows he should not look back and yet as the sun turns the heads of flowers, he cranes his neck to see over his shoulder. "That's not fair. I'm younger than you, and I know I don't know anything about magic. But I'm not...I'm not stupid. I know what I'm feeling. So please, just-- don't _patronize_ me." Reynir's nose crinkles where it meets the edge of his brow, in warning of tears to come.

 

He has misstepped. Onni relents to face him again, though he cannot grasp hold of Reynir's shoulder as he might have.

 

"Hey, I said it's okay. Don't cry," Onni beseeches him.

 

"But...but I'm not?" Reynir frowns, but it's true. His lashes are dry. Onni brushes his fingers across his cheek to confirm and finds his knuckles come away dry. Reynir watches as he turns them over in disbelief. "I think you might be, though."

 

 

The first night without him there is perhaps the hardest. His luonto patrols the skies, and the waters of the void are clear. The silence in his dream is deafening; The delicate purple flowers grow undisturbed as before. Onni sits with his bare feet submerged in the water, waiting for the dawn. It's strange to think his nightly vigils were always so still. That he's borne witness to years of inertia like this before Reynir invited his self in. Onni does not miss him, he thinks. But he feels the lack of him deep in his bones.

 

A week passes and it seems like years. His sister backtracks their expedition, back along the highway to a side road. They lose several days of progress to Odense. Tuuri drives long hours, and on the radio she is frustrated and tired. The Swedish couple deliberates late into the night, well after Taru and the old man have turned in. Onni can hear them as he lies awake in the guest room, trying to stave off sleep's hold. He doesn't wish to be left with just his thoughts for company until morning.

 

Because his thoughts have turned traitorous on him. The doubt slips its claws under his skin: Reynir wants him. He could have him, if he wished. In spite of his willpower, the images come unbidden as in that first dream. Reynir beneath him, bare shoulders prickling in the cool. Hair spread out across the pale fur of Onni's cloak. His eyelashes fluttering, lips parted to sigh as Onni fills him. Nails sinking in between Onni's ribs.

 

And Reynir would welcome it. Readily. In spite of his willpower, Onni is hard. He strokes his fingertips along the underside of his cock as he imagines Reynir's tongue. Maybe he'd be clumsy. Nervous. Maybe he'd be shy, unable to look Onni in the eye while touching himself. Onni imagines the possibilities.

 

He imagines Reynir's nose buried in his shoulder as they lie curled about each other. A steady heartbeat against his back. A warm hand intertwined with his own. It has been so long since he has entrusted his self to another. It used to feel safe.

 

It has been so long since Onni has felt safe.

 

 

He caves after a week and a day. As he makes his request to Tuuri over the radio he tries to still the tremor in his words.

 

"Hello?" Reynir says, first sounding muffled, then suddenly too loud.

 

"It's me," Onni tells him. "I...I think we should talk."

 

"Okay...?" He trails off, as if unsure how to proceed, as if the onus is on him to continue.

 

"Yes. So. Please come by, tonight."

 

 

"I should apologize," Onni begins. "I was...not as generous as I could have been. You haven't done anything wrong."

 

Reynir sits beside him on the rocks, knees gathered up to his chest with his arms clasped around his legs.

 

"I was thinking....maybe I came on a bit strong," Reynir admits, smiling a little sadly. "I guess I was so caught up in how cool you seemed. I wasn't giving any thought to how you were feeling about it." He flicks at a dry leaf that has settled on his foot. "...I don't regret it, though. Even if you don't want anything...I still want you to know, you know? You're so awesome and you've helped me so much."

 

Onni keeps his gaze trained on the moss beneath his boots.

 

"I haven't done anything."

 

"You listened to me."

 

"It was nothing."

 

"Maybe....but it meant a lot to me. And I appreciate it." In his peripheral vision Onni can see how Reynir leans the side of his head against his knees to look at him. Onni supposes he owes him the truth, at very least.

 

"I know," he tells Reynir. "You're...kind. And you should know it isn't entirely your doing. I." He breathes in deep. As many times as he has turned the words over in his head, they still sound unfitting. "Worry. That it's wrong for you."

 

"If you don't want to--" Onni feels himself flush to the ears.

 

"--it's not that," Onni assures him. "You're. You're fine. I just don't think I'll be any good for you."

 

"Why not?" Reynir asks this quietly, curiously. Already Onni can feel the sting at the corners of his eyes.

 

"It's..." His fear threatens to choke him; how can he make Reynir understand? "I won't make you happy. You should be happy."

 

"But you already do," Reynir says, and the last of Onni's resolve crumbles.

 

The tears come freely and Reynir holds him. He gives in to the young man's arms around his shoulders, his face pressed into the coarse knit of his coat. It smells like hay and hearth ashes and a comfort Onni aches to think he has forgotten. It hurts. He is wanted and wants in kind and it hurts.

 

"It's okay," Reynir promises, hands unsteady as they stroke the length of his back. "It's going to be okay."

 

He doesn't know that. How can he say it with such certainty, Onni wonders, and the grief pours forth anew. Be it a dream or not, he's dizzy and dehydrated. His temples throb. Saimaa begins to fade at the edges of his vision. He starts. It can't be morning already. It hasn't been long, certainly not several hours--

 

\--Reynir grasps him tight one last time.

 

"I'm sorry," he says, the words low on his breath as if he's not prepared for the weight of them in full. "Just, please don't be scared. I'll be back tomorrow, I promise. It'll be okay."

 

Even as he wakes to the morning bells of Mora, his fear streams down his face in thick, wet channels. His head no longer pains him. But the dull throb in his chest is as real as anything he has felt outside of dreams. Things have spun so wildly out of his control. For the first time in many years, he cannot with any certainty see the way forward.


	4. Fall to Winter, Winter to Spring

And yet, at first, nothing appears to have changed. Reynir attends to his studies with the same care as before. The sidelong looks when he believes he is not being watched continue, but prove to be less of a distraction. Onni feels warmth across his cheeks and knows he is coloring from it. They draw runes. They discuss theory.

 

"It's a lot to think about," Reynir confesses one night, when the hours of study have worn on them both, even in their dreams. Their review, carved into the earth in spindly lines, has long since been scratched over; Reynir lies on his stomach, pushing the turned earth back and forth with his thumb. Seated on a nearby rock, Onni listens. "And a lot to know. Sometimes it seems like I'll never get it all."

 

"It takes years." It isn't entirely fair of him to take his self to task for that. "It's better to know a little now than to stick your head in the ground just because it's hard." That's the nature of responsibility. To do otherwise would be running away.

 

"Yeah. And it kind of helps to know I'm not alone." Reynir tries a smile. "If a real mage like you still has to study and learn, then it must be hard!"

 

"Remember, you're a real mage, too." An untrained mage is a mage regardless.

 

Reynir turns his eyes to the runes, smile cooling to something more wistful.

 

"I guess," he says.

 

When he is feeling brave enough, he rests his hand on top of Onni's. It is only with some effort that Onni is able to quell the guilt that threatens to swallow him when he catches his self looking Reynir over. He is permitted, or at least he thinks he might be. It isn't ill-intentioned. It may come to pass.

 

Onni isn't sure how to feel about that. He does think about it at night before sleeping. His hand will steal between his legs now and then; he imagines Reynir shivering, warm and responsive around him. He looks so thin from what Onni can see, with speckles spilling down his throat and collarbones that stand out stark against his skin. Onni wonders if his knees will be the same. Or his bare hands. He's only ever seen them gloved. Let alone felt them. He tries to envision slender fingers in the hair along his breastbone. He tries to imagine them lying close. The both of them happy. He tries...

 

He....can't. Reynir will come to know him and in knowing him, loathe him for who he has become. He knows he will. It's only a matter of time.

 

 

"Would you mind if I kissed you?" Reynir asks him one night, when the owl has departed for its survey of Onni's dream. The young man's eyes shine vivid under the starlight and for a moment Onni forgets how to breathe. Of course. Sooner or later the subject would have been broached. And yet. He supposes he'd still not quite come to terms with the reality of it. With his face flushing a painful scarlet, Onni concedes; Reynir closes the distance as easily as leaning over. He always does manage to cross that space as if it's nothing, doesn't he? There's nothing special about the kiss. It's quick. Chaste. Barely a hint of its passage on his lips. But he carries it close to his heart through the next day, touching his fingertips as if to recapture the fleeting warmth.

 

It feels as real as the shovel burning welts into his palms.

 

 

The hungry ghost stalks them across the sea. Tuuri cannot see it, but Lalli has and whatever he has witnessed --whatever has changed the beast-- it sets him to bristling with unease. Reynir has taken to calling it "the nykur" after a creature from his homeland. Spells do not dissuade it. Wards only keep it at arm's length.

 

Without his noticing, his sleep becomes troubled once more. When Onni sleeps deeply, he dreams, both as a mage and not. Sometimes they are indistinguishable from one another until he awakens. Other nights he sleeps badly and is ill-rested all the same. He has only seen the hungry ghost once, but to know that it follows, just like-- like the Saimaa thing--

 

Like the Saimaa thing, it could follow them to the ends of the earth. They'd have two stalkers to contend with. Onni clenches his teeth and rolls onto his side. This isn't what he wanted for Tuuri. Or Lalli. It isn't _living_.

 

Tears come when he thinks of the flowers tucked behind his ears some nights. The gods have built such gentleness and beauty. The trees in Saimaa will have by now begun to grow anew. Men spin sugar ribbons onto cakes even as death prowls outside their walls. There's no sense in any of it. In the bathroom down the hall, he washes his face as quietly as he can. The light is on in the makeshift headquarters and whoever is still awake doesn't need to see his swollen eyes. For as long as he can bear, he holds a washcloth of cool water to his face. Most of it trickles down his cheeks and soaks the neck of his shirt. His reflection doesn't look much improved after, but he supposes it'll have to be enough.

 

It's Siv who's awake in the war room, sitting neatly in the center of the sofa. She reads from a sheaf of papers marked heavily in pen on both sides of the pages; Törbjörn lies sprawled with his head pillowed against her leg. One of her hands rests on his chest, rising and falling with his even draws of breath. In spite of his light steps, in spite of his slow gait, Siv's head rises. Onni freezes, just an instant too long to be casual. An instant too long to turn away.

 

Siv meets his eyes. Wordless, she brings a finger to her lips and returns to her reading. In the stark overhead lighting, the directors of this mad project are cast in a way Onni has not seen them before. Törbjörn's thrumming energy is stilled in his sleep. Siv's fatigue is softened. They make it look so easy to fit to each other even in their strange, ill-matched manners. As if carving out the space for one another had come like second nature to them.

 

There isn't any use in resenting the lot he's been dealt. He's been happy to make the space for Tuuri. And equally so Lalli. One can only cut away so much of it before there's nothing left of their self. Perhaps some people simply have more left than others to give, he thinks. Mora and its electrified walls do not eat at its people's edges as does the rest of the world.

 

 

Onni is waiting outside the post office for Taru when his consciousness slips. The world goes hazy at the edges and he hears screaming in the distance. He almost thinks it is one of the episodes again before he notices his vision has grown sharp. If he takes pause, he can feel his body is falling away. Someone or something has been calling to him. Onni closes his eyes. He opens them again and spreads his wings wide. Dreams flicker before him like the shadows cast on a wall by fire: Mora, Saimaa, the void, a battered forest. Onni turns with the wind. He listens. Where is the screaming coming from?

 

A stream of frightened sheep courses below him as he nears the source. He follows the path of their flight --past incorporeal corpses that lie twisted on the earth, glowing gashes torn into them-- and is nearly ambushed by another. It seizes hold of one of the owl's legs.

 

_help me_

 

\-- it rasps. Fleeing sheep pierce through it like ghosts.

 

_it hurts_

 

Onni struggles, beating his wings against its pull. As he struggles, he spells it back. The beast recoils as if burned and Onni sings, and sings and sings until it slithers away and bleeds into the edges of its reality once more. Perhaps in better circumstances he could lead it to rest. Right now there's no time to lose. He hasn't been called like this since the hungry ghost first struck; he prays it isn't striking again. He begs the wind to bear him along faster.

 

The scene he arrives upon is something from a nightmare. Jagged runes have been painted along the sides of the tank in foul, rusting red-brown. There is a horrible moment where Onni cannot place the color. As he draws closer he recognizes the scent of wet earth, heavy with clay. A man in white, broadly built and tall, attempts to wrest a ferocious-looking woman back into the tank with his arms locked under her shoulders. Tuuri is plastering the tank windows with paper sigils, frantic. A soft-looking young man is trying to soothe a shrieking kitten beside her. Through the gaps in the windshield's paper, Onni can see that Lalli and Reynir are not inside.

 

No, they are stationed outside the tank, rather. Lalli is wrist-deep in the ghost's blackness, clawing pieces of smog from its back. His fingertips glow with the loaned strength of the lynx, phantom claws carving out shadow and ember. He is paling, reaching the limits of his capabilities. Reynir restrains it with a length of rope slung about what could be its neck, pulling it away from the tank by only the barest of margins. Smoke bursts from one of Lalli's divots and he hisses his disgust at the spray of soot. Reynir yells something but the heat-wind pouring off the beast is swelling the air and Onni is blown tumbling back too far to hear. He is caught by the upper boughs of some half-dead trees.

 

The beast roars. The wind roars.

 

"Onni?" Taru says. Onni fights to extricate his self from the tangled, broken branches. He whips his head around. Amidst the fray, Lalli has called up the lynx in its entirety, driving claws the length of daggers into the beast's body. He will not be able to sustain it. Onni forces his way free and to his side. Reynir prays and prays, still not yet coherent from this distance; his voice shakes but he does not relent. Onni gathers the words to cast the beast back once more.

 

Without Onni's notice, the rope has gone searing white, all the way from Reynir's grasp to the ghost's throat. It grows from warm to blinding until the smell of smoldering ashes fills the air. It's in his feathers and eyes and if he breathes in from downwind it would be in his lungs. And then a pinprick of light punctures the beast's skull.

 

It cries out in pain, the burning light spreading and crackling across its face. It's like nothing Onni has ever seen. He tucks his head as best as he can and charges to dislodge Lalli before whatever is happening -- happens. Lalli lands roughly on his side but rolls some distance away. Aside from some bruises tomorrow and the blood beading up at his nostril, he will be alright, Onni thinks. Tuuri is still safe inside their shelter. Reynir's jaw has fallen open wide in awe as light fractures the head of the beast, pulsing and pounding like a heartbeat within. And then it shatters.

 

"Onni?" Taru tries again, shaking him by the shoulder. Onni slumps forward in his seat. He opens his eyes in front of the post office in Mora. "Are you alright?"

 

 

Tuuri assures him they are all fine. Lalli is back to bedrest again, but that isn't unusual. Their medic has cleaned him up and changed his clothes and a friend is monitoring him, perhaps to excess. Reynir has been singed and his clothing will not be quite the same, but is also well. Tuuri is shaken but entirely unhurt. He wishes he could be there for her, she and Lalli shouldn't have to bear it alone.

 

As soon as he is recovered enough, Reynir comes seeking his guidance again. He presses his forehead against the neck of his fylgja-dog and sighs deeply.

 

"You don't know anything about what it was that happened back there, do you?" By now Onni supposes the question is a last effort at understanding. Neither of them have answers.

 

"I'm afraid not. I only know what I saw, which wasn't much." He turns to Reynir. "What do you think it was?"

 

"I'm not sure. It's like one big blur." Reynir's face is hidden in the dog's fur, but he Onni can see his fingers tensing on the dog's shoulder. "One second everything was normal and then....it was like we were in an awful dream." The dog sniffs at him, nose ruffling his hair. Onni edges closer so he can lay a hand to his back. "I tried begging the gods for help. I didn't know what else to do, I just wanted it to leave us alone."

 

"You did well."

 

"No." Reynir's voice breaks. When he lifts his head, there are soft red blotches beneath the skin of his face. "I didn't do anything! It was...angry. And so lost. But the whole time, all I could think was.... _I don't want to die_." Grief twists his features into something unrecognizable.

 

"Shhh. Stop that. Come here." Onni pulls him to his chest.

 

"That could have been a person. Oh, gods. I might have killed someone--" Reynir sucks in a breath. And another. "Oh gods."

 

"You did nothing wrong."

 

"--it didn't want to die, either." Reynir chokes, coughs. "I don't feel too good," he mutters, and dissipates.

 

 

Reynir is already there when Onni sits up the next night.

 

".....you're able to sleep tonight, then." Reynir bows his head.

 

"Yeah. After I woke up last night, I. Kind of stayed up. So I must be pretty tired now." Onni watches the surface of the lake shimmer.

 

"I'm glad. You should be resting while you can." He hesitates a moment, and places his hand on Reynir's and holds it tight. It's too bold by half, but it's all he can think to do. Reynir smiles, a mere flickering of relief across his features before the grief stifles it again.

 

"I don't understand. It was." He swallows. "That was horrible. It...the thing, it was so lost. Why would the gods let that _happen_ to someone?" He looks to Onni, not expectant but exhausted. Desperate.

 

"I can't say. I don't know, either." The admission hollows him out. But as much as he may wish it were not so it is the truth, and he wouldn't lie to him. "The gods aren't always kind or fair, I suppose."

 

Reynir lets his weight fall against Onni, resting his head in the crook of his neck. His shoulder is sharp, pressed against Onni's heart. The acrid scent of burning matter still clings to him.

 

"Even so. You saved Tuuri and Lalli, and came back safe. It may not be much comfort...but I am glad you could. If nothing else, please don't regret that." Reynir breathes out a little laugh, just one.

 

"I don't feel like much of a hero," he explains.

 

"If you want, I could throw you a parade," Onni offers. He's treated to the same airy laughter once more.

 

"You wouldn't do that," Reynir says.

 

"Try me."

 

 

After everything that's happened, it isn't much, but Onni offers to look into what he can about the Icelanders' gods. To understand how the patrons of the soothsayers and pathfinders would see fit to grant a man the power to destroy. Reynir declines: he'd rather learn on his own terms, and does not plan to harness it again if he doesn't need to. It doesn't seem the wisest course of action to Onni, but the determination in Reynir's voice as he refuses allays enough of his doubt. Sometimes he forgets that Reynir is so much taller than him, that when he is faced with Reynir standing up straight he is not able to immediately place what is different. He has to crane his neck upwards to reach when Reynir draws close for a kiss. Closing the distance grows easier. Not smoothly or quickly, by any means, but easier. He never quite knows where to look when Reynir presses a hand to his cheek and takes in the sight of him. But Reynir has not pushed him away for it yet.

 

He can feel the way Reynir's body melds to his when Onni pins him up against the bare stone face. The kiss itself is nearly an afterthought, something secondary to the feel of their almost-mirrored hearts pounding. Reynir sighs against his lips. When Onni struggles the collar of his tunic open, he lets his head fall to rest against the rock. His fingers card through Onni's hair over and over but Onni can think only of the warmth of Reynir's skin against his tongue. The heady scent of flesh and sweat. Any more would be too much too fast but he is content to drown himself in the simple pleasure of the sensation. Under the layers of linen and wool, Reynir's ribs, his hips jut out against his palm.

 

Reynir's voice creaks in his throat, something further gone than before yet not quite a cry. A weight slips off Onni's shoulders-- Reynir has unfastened his hood and is fumbling for his belt. As he pulls back, the sight of Reynir's eyes transfixed on his waist, eager and aching, corrodes away at his resolve more than he will ever be comfortable to admit. Knowing that he could have this if he wanted. And he wants. But.

 

Not like this.

 

"Wait--" He braces himself for the disappointment, fingers closing around Reynir's wrist..

 

"Oh, um." The buckle clatters between them. "Are you, uh, okay?" It's softer than he'd feared.

 

"Yes. I just-- it's-- can we go, ah. Slower?"

 

"Slower," Reynir repeats, as if he's not quite caught up with the conversation. Face heating, Onni stares at their joined hands.

 

"Please." It used to feel safe, it must have, once. And he knows Reynir would not try to hurt him. But to give in to this would make what they have indelible. And of that, Onni is afraid. Reynir is good to him. Reynir is too good to him. They concede, at least, to lying upon his spread cloak, stripped of their shirts and talking. In hindsight Onni suspects it is, perhaps, no less dangerous.

 

Half-dry leaves gather around them on the worn lining. Onni picks at one, curling and crunching it along the seams.

 

"I've been wondering. Is this where you live?" Reynir asks him. 

 

"It. Was. This is where we used to live, a long time ago."

 

"It feels so lifelike here. You must have really loved it, huh."

 

Saimaa was so many things for the children (such as they were, once) and for him. The memories threaten to choke him as he tries to give voice to them. And the most he can manage in the end is:

 

"....yes. Very much so."

 

Reynir sighs, turning onto his back. There are bits of detritus in his hair, and Onni combs his fingers through it.

 

"I've never seen so many trees. I wish I could show you -- it's so different from where I'm from." He drums his fingertips against his belly. "That'd be really cool, though, if you could come visit it for real. It'd be neat to hang out for real. Even if your Icelandic is kind of..."

 

"Oh," Onni says, coating his words as fully as he can in cool disinterest; the hint of a smile scratching at his throat. "My Icelandic is?"

 

"I'll help you train, it'll be a fair trade."

 

The nerve of him. Unbelievable. He's lucky Onni likes him so much.

 

 

This is the thought that Onni catches his self turning over in his head with unsettling frequency. As a practice exercise, Reynir meditates to maintain a defensive barrier. Onni looks on, entertaining the luonto dog's head upon his knee. He scratches the creature behind its ears and chews a juniper berry. Reynir frowns in concentration, his eyes closed against distractions. He's very focused. Onni flicks a berry at him.

 

There's a dull click as it strikes the barrier and bounces off. The next as well.

 

"I'm trying to focus." He does not open his eyes, but his brows furrow.

 

"You'll have to be able to maintain a defense even with distractions. It's time you learned how." The dog snorts. Onni flicks another berry at Reynir.

 

"...if you're bored, you could just say so..."

 

"I'm not bored," Onni says. "I'm helping." The fourth passes through and lands somewhere in Reynir's clothing. Reynir presses his lips into a tight line.

 

"That's not fair. I never bother you when you're doing mage stuff! You're really lucky that I," Reynir begins, and catches himself. "Um." He opens his eyes and the look on Onni's face must be something, because Reynir's is stunned right back. "Don't," he says. "That I don't bother you."

 

By then it's too late, of course. They are both in well over their heads. It keeps Onni awake in the small hours of the morning when he lets the reel of his thoughts spin and spin. Sometimes he cannot breathe under the weight of them. The cool cloths don't help. Working his body to his exhaustion proves useless. Taru watches him from over her newspaper in the mornings, expression serious.

 

"You're not sleeping," she tells him in Finnish. Trond raises a brow, between them. "Dark circles, under your eyes." She points to her own, where time has relaxed the skin into padded crescents. "You're not going to tell me it's allergies again, are you?"

 

"I'm fine," he says. Taru blows on her coffee, trying not to smile knowingly. It's infuriating.

 

"Sure you are. Well, if it keeps up, you should see someone about it."

 

And a fine mess it all is. He yields, because he does not know what else to do. He wants, and is wanted and he tires of denial. If Reynir will have him and his rusting heart, then he will give it. Reynir's hands clench in the material of his shirt as Onni bears down upon him, pressing them into the earth.

 

"Tell me you want me," he breathes. The words twist like a blade between his ribs and it occurs to Onni that he's begging. He sinks his fingers into the flesh of his rear, pulling their hips closer, as close as he can. It'll be okay, he tells himself. This much he can give. Reynir's not asking for his very blood. Reynir rocks up against him, hard enough to feel it through all the fabric between them.

 

"So badly," Onni swears right against his ear, close enough to feel Reynir's whimper as much as he hears it.

 

"Yes--"

 

"Like nothing else."

 

"Tell me you like me, gods, please-- " Onni kisses him. Reynir does not take it for a no. His hands falter and slip against Onni's chest, up his shoulders and fumble their way to his jaw to hold him. Oh, gods, he thinks. He really is in this mess so deep. Reynir moans high and raw, and deep into Onni's throat. Onni cuts short the litany of his pleas with kiss after kiss --to his lips, to his jaw, to his throat, to his breast-- until nothing remains but them. Their gasps. The heat of their bodies, the grind of their hips. Sweat and fabric and friction. The sweetness of almost-touching, the jut of Reynir's cock against his. It doesn't take long for Reynir to come, his body is different. Hasty, as a young man's will be. Onni does his best to move more gently against him after, though he aches to follow him and soon. Slow rolls of Reynir's hips drag his orgasm from him and when his body begins to remember itself he can feel fingers stroking the nape of his neck.

 

They don't actually see each other unclothed in full until Onni leads him down to the water. It's fortunate that this is only a dream; not much can be done about their clothes. Reynir sits on one of the slick stones and lets Onni wipe clean his belly and thighs. He shivers. Even in the shallows, the lake was always cold. It isn't much, but Onni wraps his fur cloak about Reynir's shoulders. Reynir is swimming in it, but the way he clasps it shut at the throat with just his hand is so becoming that Onni cannot help but kiss him again. With unsteady movements, Reynir reaches for the wet cloth so he might return the favor. It's something of a boon that he's too spent to be aroused once more by Reynir's attention to his cock. It is certainly an image he will be revisiting often.

 

Onni is amazed by how easily it becomes a part of their repertoire. It's not without its rough patches. He still wakes in the night, overcome by the fear. The grief is as much a part of him as ever. Taru drops hints without subtlely and he is shamed by the truth of them. He knows. Grandmother would be disappointed with how he's handled it. He knows, but.

 

But he is carving and reshaping only as quickly as he can. He will make the space for that, one day. Sometime, he will be ready.

 

 

The months speed by before Onni can count them. Snow melts, and he has little to shovel. The exploration party pulls in to the base at the Sound. Taru warns him it will be several weeks before the team returns to Mora: fourteen days of quarantine, not including debriefing and travel. But they will return and they will stay, as they have a great deal to discuss. He weeps openly when Tuuri radios in from safety. Törbjörn kisses Siv. She blushes, but remains close to him with her hand on his shoulder through the conference. Trond sits a little taller in his seat, and Taru treats them all to a round of the Västerström's good coffee. The relief and joy have gotten to their heads, perhaps, but they are well within their rights. They may be mad, but they have earned this respite.

 

Onni counts the weeks down almost to the hour. He isn't allowed at the train station, but he is the first to greet her when she arrives a headquarters, with a hug so tight, she has to protest in spite of herself. (Lalli is well and passes up a hug, but he greets Onni properly -- an unexpected improvement.) Reynir greets him with a shy handshake. The excitement is running so high, they don't even bother with formalities that evening: they skip the discussions in favor of warm food, cold drinks, and celebration well into the night.

 

There comes a soft tap on the guest room door some time after midnight. Years of listening for Lalli have taught him over-caution; better to look than to find Lalli curled up in the snow outside the next morning. But it's not Lalli.

 

"Hey," Reynir says, ducking his head as he is prone to when self-conscious. Onni grants him entry and a seat upon the bed.

 

"It's....it's really good to see you," he says. "I know it sounds crazy, but I was beginning to think I'd been dreaming all this up." He picks at a bead of filling spilling out of the bedspread. Onni leans against the low dresser. Reynir raises his head to take in the sight of him, as if he'll vanish the moment he's out of Reynir's view. It has been a very long time since anyone has looked at him like that. Onni has become unaccustomed to it; he feels flayed open by the attention.

 

"You look the same," Onni tells him. He curses his faulty tongue the moment the words leave them. "As you do, I mean--"

 

"Yeah. You too."

 

They sit in silence -- for how long, Onni doesn't know. Reynir is the one to break it, standing:

 

"--can I?" His hand reaches for Onni's, folded over the edge of the dresser. Onni grants it. It doesn't feel any different, Reynir's warmth on his skin. Reynir holds his hand in both of his, tracing the lines of his palm with a thumb. Onni's eyes begin to burn. Reynir draws a slow, shuddering breath.

 

"Reynir--"

 

"I'm so glad," Reynir says. He speaks quickly, deliberately, to snuff out whatever flame of doubt had begun to fan in Onni's mind. "I was afraid. Even though I knew-- I heard you on the radio, and I saw the picture-- but it was so, so," but what it was, Onni does not find out. He has to clasp his other hand over his own mouth and it diverts Reynir's train of thought. "What's the matter?"

 

Onni shakes his head. He doesn't know. Maybe everything. Maybe nothing. He cannot tell the difference anymore.

 

"It's okay. Please don't cry." He smooths his fingers along Onni's temple. They brush the still-sensitive scar tissue atop his ear and the softness of it terrifies him.

 

"I....almost couldn't believe it," Onni confesses. The uncertainty had worn on him; even now it's raw to the open air. "I knew. I _knew--_ "

 

"--but it felt too much like a dream," Reynir agrees, for him.

 

"Yes."

 

He is able to stave off the tears until after they've made love. Reynir's hair shines copper in the lamplight as Onni holds him in his arms. The room is stagnant and warm and when he breathes he inhales their scents combined, sour and intoxicating. Their skin clings. Reynir amuses his self with the way his finger stutters against Onni's breast.

 

"So. What now?" Reynir asks.

 

"I don't know." Perhaps Reynir will return to Iceland. Perhaps he will train as a mage. Perhaps Onni can dissuade Tuuri from this insane scheme (however unlikely that may be) and Lalli will leave his companion (equally unlikely) and they will all return to life as usual in Keuruu. Perhaps not.

 

"Are you scared?" Right to the heart of the matter. Merciless. Onni sighs.

 

"Yeah. You?"

 

"Terrified. Even worse than soul-eating ghosts."

 

"Hm. That's pretty scary." Reynir tips his chin up to face him. He looks peaceful, not afraid. Happy.

 

"We're getting pretty good at being scared."

 

"It's a big, bad, scary world," Onni tries to joke. It doesn't sound as funny as he'd like it to.

 

"That's okay." Reynir's eyes are falling shut. They flutter with his resistance, but satiation has made him leaden. "You're bigger, badder, and scarier. And once I learn real mage stuff, I'll be, too."

 

"You are a real mage," Onni reminds him. He suspects they will be having this conversation frequently. Reynir yawns.

 

"Mm-hm. That's cool."

 

"I mean it."

 

"Yeah."

 

"You can't stay here all night." Onni jostles him, with some difficulty. "They're going to ask."

 

Reynir does not reply. Halfway asleep already. That's a new discovery, in waking. It must be nice to be a young man, with a young man's problems. Although it could have been worse, Onni concedes. There are far more uncomfortable positions Reynir could have left him in. He swallows his protests and eases back into the valley in his pillow. At some point he'll have to rouse him and encourage him back to his proper accommodations. As long as he returns before anyone else stirs. After that. Well.

 

He'll manage. He always has.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. Questions? Comments? Constructive criticism? Drop me a line!


End file.
